Acadia (CD)

Composer and guitarist Yasmin Williams releases her new album, Acadia, on October 4, 2024, via Nonesuch Records. The album, her Nonesuch debut and her most sonically expansive work to date, comprises nine original, mostly instrumental, tracks written and produced by Williams, and features her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. Williams is joined on the album by an eclectic cast of collaborators-including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Dom Flemons on rhythm bones, Aoife O'Donovan on vocals, William Tyler on guitar, and many others-creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life. Of the album, Williams says: "Acadia has several meanings: a place of rural peace and pastoral poetry (Italian), a refuge or idyllic place, (Greek and Italian), fertile land (Mi'kmaq), a place of plenty (French)... all of this relates to the ethos of this album. The songs are seeds I planted, and the seeds grew into the album, Acadia: a place of peace, a place where creativity can blossom, a place where everyone can fit in together and collaborate effectively, a place where the fruits of my own labor in music can fully flourish without judgment or prejudice. One of my visions for this record was to expand the potential for current folk music to encourage collaboration across various genres. Blurring those somewhat arbitrary lines has been a natural tendency for me since I started writing music at twelve years old and Acadia is a full circle moment. "